The Return

Chapter Twenty

"How did you put up with him?" Holly rubbed her palm in soothing circles on Heaven's back.

She narrowed her eyes at the end of the road long after his brake lights vanished.

The street was empty, lit up by scantily scattered stars and flickering lights. They sat in front of a two-story home by the intersection. The living room lights were out. Like most houses in the neighborhood, the mailbox was mounted by the end of the yard, and crammed in it were days' worth of untouched envelopes.

They had to be between West van Buren Street and South Aberdeen Street which meant the West Point Library was a stone's throw away.

Worst case scenario, they would camp out there till the dust died down.

"I didn't," Heaven said slowly. She looked over at Holly. "There's a reason I wound up with the airheaded white-boy." Heaven shook her head as if discarding a bad memory. She was running her hands over her legs beneath her dress. "I was never home. And when I was, Vaughn was at work. I didn't pick up his calls, I never responded to his texts."

Holly's blood boiled.

What was the point of calling a place home if there was little comfort in it? For the three-years Holly and Georgia were away, Heaven was homeless.

"But he never... brought them back, did he?"

Heaven shook her head.

"I couldn't bear to look at him, Holly. What those women said... hearing them cry over him... he broke homes, families. He started all this... He didn't stumble into it. He went after those women, one by one." Her voice cracked.

Holly's stomach knotted.

"And rather than taking responsibility, he gaslighted them. Played the victim." Holly studied her sister in a new light. She could see her clearly beneath the iridescent streetlamp. Dark dense hair pulled up in a tight bun from her face and her dark brown eyes were red and puffy.

When Holly saw Heaven, she saw more than the girl she lost touch with after her parent's divorce. She saw a strong independent woman who's been dealt her own slice of hell and in her own way stood tall despite. "At first I thought I could cope with my podcast, Hell by Heaven. I just needed to talk to someone, anyone and once I started talking, people wanted to listen and for a while, it was an escape, my escape. But it wasn't real. I wasn't talking to him. I was talking to nameless faces and listening ears on an app." Holly felt like shit. She didn't even know Heaven had a podcast. "When you first got here, I was mad at you for having the courage to do what God knows I couldn't..."

Heaven was on the verge of another bout of tears.

Holly was the voice in their dynamic.

She gave into the regret that gnawed at her insides.

Heaven didn't have Georgia to settle trembling waters.

Holly was a horrible sister.

A worse friend.

She was self-centered. Convinced things were worse off for her, she refused to see things through Heaven's eyes and nurtured ill-fitted anger against the girl that was suffering in silence.

"I wasn't strong, Holly. I was weak and stupid." Heaven caught her breath. "I hated him, Holly." She let out a dry laugh. "I didn't know how to forgive him... And one night, Cody told me to do it for me, to forgive him so I can move on, so I don't have to carry around this weight on my shoulders." She wiggled her shoulders.

Bobbing her head, Holly pulled Heaven into a tight hug.

"And I hope you know, Holly, that moving on and trusting him is going to be hard and painful, but it will be worth it in the end, I promise." She whispered into Holly's hair.

"What do we do now?" Holly asked.

"Well, we call the guy that taught me how toforgive."